Etiquette Lesson For Friday

Folk Art for Friday

Bless Chil'ren'

The gouty old lady on the Q train this morning who was reading F.M.L. Thompson's The Rise of Respectable Society while muttering to herself and gesticulating wildly.

Deep Ends

January is the proper time to prepare for the beachgoing of our summer-futures. It's a good moment to juice and cabbage cleanse, a good moment to reinstitute one's exercise bulemia (five months of which will certainly do the trick). Visions of barbeques and bonfires and shoelessness and scanty clothing spirit me through the hunger hallucinations and overlong, uphill elliptical treks. And last night, I began a round of online swimwear window-shopping and well . . . I found that I liked something sort of atrocious: a plunging Ed Hardy one-piece, in all of its rhinestoned EuroTRASH, Hard Rock Hotel and Casino glory. Look here. And do click to enlarge.

I'll be sporting it come June, whether you like it or not.

The Best Thing Going (For ALWAYS)

Clarity here. (And how sexy is it that Alec admits to drinking white wine and ice cubes from a plastic cup? Unthreatenable masculinity!)

Good Mornting!

Nail Color For Thursday

Chanel Gold Fiction. I've gone down this gold nails route before (it was the color I chose for my very first manicure moons ago), and it doesn't look so good on me. But the name of this extra posh Chanel number is fantastic (companies should always relish the task of naming cosmetic shades). And since I've been going all English noblewoman and not wearing an ounce of jewelry, I feel my hands deserve a jolt of metal.

In Winter

In winter, I dress like a political lesbian. Now, I'm a believer in uniforms. I think it's chic and dignified to know oneself sartorially and eschew "costumes" or anything else that reeks of effort (hunger, delusion). And certainly androgyny becomes more pervasive in culture by the minute, allowing me to wear my dad's old clothes to death (which is exactly what I've been doing). But I was seated beside Jared Kushner (pictured here with Ivanka Trump on his shoulders) and several good-looking, besuited others on a banquette in an intimate (something like six tables) dining room this afternoon, and well . . . I just wish I'd been in heels and a pencil skirt.

It's all well and good to wear smocks and shabby pants and oversize cashmere sweaters with gaping holes all of the time as an artist/librarian/experimental musician/blogger/Britney Spears-poet-laureate, but if I'm looking to make some paper (please, Lord--Able was not born to be a Bohemian past her 25th birthday) and break out of my tragic hipster-loser-bartender-ladyman dating cycle I must get me to a TAILOR. And though I tend to wear feminine sundresses in the warmer months (decidedly less butch), these only stand as testimony to my severe hippie-dom/teaheadedness (more politics). Everyday I distance myself further from the "straight world"--how, for one, will I ever reintroduce myself to underwear?!

Perhaps this is some grass-greener syndrome. Perhaps if I actually got hold of one of these shiny finance types I'd be bored and confused . . . can I really deny my fetish for confederate soldiers or that Ana Mendieta (above) is my utter pants idol? Here's the facts: I will always be a hippie. I was borned that way. But I can be a hippie with untattered, flattering clothes and commercial aspirations and a crew-cut of a boyfriend. Anything is possible. This is AMERICA (and in my heart of hearts I will always be bourgeois . . . I was borned that way too, you know, in America).

The style Obama brings us...

Okay, so this has nothing whatsoever to do with Obama. Homeboy's got plenty of other important shit on his mind. But somehow, someway, I know Bush has been suppressing this [I'm at a loss for adjectives] POSTHUMOUS LISA "LEFT-EYE" LOPES ALBUM THAT IS BEING RELEASED TUESDAY!!!!!!!!
http://www.myspace.com/lefteyelegacy

Middle School Dance Music Committee

I know you promised me a Kate Spade, but that was LAST year boy, in the eighth grade!

The Best Thing Going (For Wednesday)

http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/

View of a Room

Besides being crazy-in-love with the socialist playwright hero (pictured above) of The Lives of Others (a German film I meant to see ages ago but finally got around to watching this past weekend) and moved by its narrative, I am nuts nuts nuts about the apartment that said playwright shares with his actress lady-love, and below I've embedded a clip of secret operatives bugging it. Of those available on the internets, it's the best for viewing the grand and careless wood-paneled (!!) space. But truly, watch the film. It's lovely, and one gets the full measure of this apartment by viewing the whole. I found myself so enamored of the things on their walls, in and out of focus (and reality). It's sent me into such a crisis about ugliness (and POOR taste) in New York.

Folk Art for Tuesday

So

This has been quite a morning--the climax: President Obama's address, a stirring, ORATORICAL (finally) cry for D-I-G-N-I-T-Y (word!). The very air was singing. Everyone looked gorgeous! I had some favorites . . . Obviously, the Obama clan cut a figure in bright bright brights. I was all aflutter to see old H.W. (I have a long-harbored soft spot for papa Bush) in that yellow cashmere turtle neck, royal purple scarf, and smart beaver hat. The crowd cheered almost as heartily for 42 and the Missus (Missus Secretary of State, that is) as they did for the man of the hour. Yes, there was a grey flannel bow up on Queen Aretha's head. And Dick Cheney was in a wheelchair, cue unabashed laughter at handicapped old man! They say he pulled a muscle while moving boxes into his new home. I say he pulled a muscle while playing The Most Dangerous Game on a remote isle with Delta Burke's husband. And, not to go on and on about Republicans (though being the dark boozers that we are at A&P, we yearn to go to some GOP parties tonight to drink really fine scotch with well-coifed, crestfallen men), but wasn't Jenna Bush's husband, Henry Hager, just a stone fox in his camel overcoat (I know you're with me, Pillow). Oh happy day!

Up With People

I am not a full stop fan of limousines, but this Caddie that the Obamas are sporting today--c'est magnifique!

Verses

I got all in a tizzy over Rick Warren again this weekend, and then I looked more closely at Obama's chosen inaugural poet, Elizabeth Alexander. She writes about Agnes Martin! All is forgiven, Barack.

Islands Number Four

1.

Agnes Martin, Islands Number Four,
Repeated ovals on a grid, what appears
To be perfect is handmade, disturbed.
Tobacco brown saturates canvas to burlap,
Clean form from a distance, up close, her hand.
All wrack and bramble to oval and grid.
Hollows in the body, containers for grief.
What looks to be perfect is not perfect.

Odd oval portholes that flood with light.

2.

Description of a Slave Ship, 1789:
Same imperfect ovals, calligraphic hand.
At a distance, pattern. Up close, bodies
Doubled and doubled, serried and stacked
In the manner of galleries in a church,
In full ships on their sides or on each other.
Isle of woe, two-by-two, spoon-fashion,
Not unfrequently found dead in the morning.
Slave ships, the not pure, imperfect ovals,
Portholes through which they would never see home,
The flesh rubbed off their shoulders, elbows, hips.
Barracoon, sarcophagus, indestructible grief
Nesting in the hollows of the abdomen.
The slave ship empty, its cargo landed
And sold for twelve ounces of gold apiece

Or gone overboard. Islands. Aftermath.

Happy Inauguration Eve!

I can't wait for a glimpse of Aretha tomorrow!

I'm OK. You're OK.

Folk Art for Monday

By way of

The Long Weekend

I've only caught fifteen minutes of an episode. And it made me feel icky all over. But Tool Academy is a non-stop thrill-ride (of caca), sort of not to be missed. You see, nine young gentlemen were lured by VH1 (and their nine sad girlfriends) into a cardboard model home under false pretences, told they had been cast in a competetion reality show called Mr. Awesome and then . . .

Coming Soon to DVD and Blu-Ray.

I could wax poetic about the insanity of Richard Kelly's apocalyptic (in both content and production history) follow-up to Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, for days. I mean, the cast alone: Dwayne "My Character Just Happens To Be Gay" Johnson, Sarah "WTF Are Antique Books?" Michelle Prinze, Mandy "Missing You Like Candy" Moore, Bai "Fucking" Ling, to name a few... but in the spirit of A&P, I'd like instead to offer a sneak peak of Justin "But It Came From Memphis!" Timberlake's performance. In this wayward love story, he plays Pilot Abilene, an Iraq War veteran, disfigured and mostly narrating the film. He has a delightful musical number, however, drenched in blood, surrounded by a rather mellow acid trip, wandering around a Chuck E. Cheese, and lip-synching to The Killers "All These Things I've Done". It helps me go to bed at night.

Founding Fathers: Gia Carangi

This picture is captioned in her biography, Thing of Beauty, simply as "Stoned in New York."

As the World Turns

I watched them build this number, and I was a little dubious about the heavy-handed "African-ness" of the mode. Now, as they begin to fill the apartments, I've had a change of heart. I think The Kalahari (on W. 116th) is tremendous (also eco-friendly). I wish more people were embracing masonry this way, making vibrant architectual textiles.

This Androgynous Baby is Damn Lucky

To Sir, With Love.

So it's official, apparently ... Beyonce will sing the first song to which Barack and Michelle Obama will dance as President and First Lady of The United States of America. All jokes about "Single Ladies" aside (although if Hillary danced to it afterwards ... Jehova, words can't describe), I have my vote on Sasha Fierce's anthem for the new America. I discovered this song while first exploring her album, shortly after it came out, and fell in a sort of fantasy love for it. It's beautiful and catchy and everything you'd like to tell that special someone, if only they existed.

With that said, I would very much like to dedicate this to President Obama and his bad-ass Lady. Admittedly, part of me is incredibly jealous of Michelle, because I can acknowledge that she's found the perfect man. I'm even more jealous when I realize that she's willing to share him with her country....

In any event, Mrs. HOVA has released a video for the song in question. Unfortunately, it won't embed... henceforth: here you go

Depeche Mode—Big Trail

Startling but really quite nice.

Depeche Mode—"I bought it for you in the Young Miss Department. It was very expensive."

If We Were In a Western

I just read a Scarlett Johanssen quote. She was being asked about dream roles or something. She said that every actor hopes to be in a Western (really?). She claims that she would play a madam at one of those saloon/whorehouse places, because "there's only so long people want to see me in a corset . . . blah blah blah." It led me to thinking. There are just a few plum roles for broads in frontier pictures (other than The Harvey Girls): Hooker with a Heart of Gold, Madam with a Heart Buried Beneath Years of Rough Men and Settling Dust, Virtuous, "Roman" Homesteading Wife. What role would you choose? The madam and wife have meat and purpose, are fodder for fine writing. But I still want to play the Hooker with a Heart of Gold (oh well) (blame Bob Dylan) (and Niel Young) (and Daniel Defoe).

Funny For Friday

Account for it here . . .

The Girl Can't Help It

I was not going to feel the need to actually defend Memphis against Hamilton Nolan and company. I was going to let it go the way of yesterday's news. But . . . this morning, wending my way to the train, it all came over me anew. You see, recently I've made a concerted effort to be less of a cynic. I don't think my old contempts were natural; they were a pose of youth. The opening and softening of my opinions and sensibilities has been revelatory, quite pleasant. However, even I was shocked at the "softness" of the thoughts occurring to me this A.M.: Memphians have poetical souls. Only poetically-souled people could love a dying city. The phrase "poetical souls" was a particular surprise. But there you have it.

Memphis is a tricky place. The crime rate is high, the gap between rich and poor enormous, the city government wicked and farcical. Much appears to be decaying about one, out of use, out of order, a lover struck with plague. But—partially because of, not in spite of its troubles—the place is full of human beauty and richness (if you don't trust the biased natives, just ask Jim Jarmusch or Cat Power). None of this artfulness is an accident. It is the product of the incredible highs and lows, near magical forces at work. It is the product of poetry, Memphian soulfulness. SOUL MUSIC!!!!! I may live in Brooklyn now, because it's where a young artist ought to be, but it's not for lack of love for my hometown or the glorious friends that I have there (Pillow and Alpha!). Look across this country and you will find so many places loved by poets, loved because of their inherent flaws and feats, downs and ups, loved without hope or promise. Where are you from Hamilton Nolan? What do you love? Are you one of those people who only love clean, easy, hermetically sealed places? Soulless places? Harrumph!

It would be pedantic of me to make a list of all of the great soul records made in Memphis, for there are many many many, but I will provide a snippet sampler (Otis at Monterey!):